5 Ways Cloud-Managed Video can Save Your Quick Service Restaurant Money

How to Use Cloud-Managed Video to Save Money

The needs of quick service restaurants (QSR) aren’t the same as every other business and a basic video surveillance system might not be sufficient. Quick service restaurants can be frequent victims of crime and fraud and because they are open late, have high customer traffic and deal in cash they can be attractive targets for robbery. Managing multiple locations across town or across the country is challenging enough so your video surveillance system shouldn’t be part of the problem. A cloud-managed system can help reduce shrink, improve customer service and streamline operations through actionable business intelligence.

Reduce the burden on IT and Operations

A cloud managed video system cuts down on the time needed to configure and set up new systems by establishing network connections using a trusted outbound connection to manage and authenticate remote communication. This means no open inbound ports, DDNS, or port forwarding to punch holes in your secure firewall, and it means your IT staff will spend less time on connection issues and less risk of lost connectivity. Single sign-on and roaming user profiles also reduce IT support calls to configure settings for new devices and the cloud-managed system automates common repetitive tasks like helping users with forgotten passwords.

Cut down on site visits

You can’t be at every location all the time but you have trusted managers to handle the day to day management and training at each location. It isn’t convenient or realistic for you to drive to each location every time there is an incident that needs to be pulled up from your recorded video. It gets expensive to send a technician out to each location every time you need to add or remove a user, access or export your video, or download and install a software update. You can give your managers access to the cameras at their location while the main corporate account has remote access to the cameras at all locations. Secure user management in the cloud makes it easy to do all of these things remotely, to update individual or user groups and push those changes out to all your recorders instantly.

Streamline your operations

Whether it’s a slip and fall incident, an after-hours break-in, or a positive interaction between your employees and customers, sometimes you need to save a video clip for review and share it with colleagues or the authorities. A cloud-managed system lets you save those video clips in your account in the cloud and share them quickly via email. It can even be done completely remotely so local managers don’t have to figure out how to use the recorder again every time an incident occurs or locate a thumb drive or DVD to back up data to they can just email the clip to law enforcement. Select cloud-managed systems will provide a log to track who is viewing your video clips and let you give temporary access to individuals that expires after a set date. Reduce the time you spend managing video incidents by moving those tools to the cloud.

Gain actionable insights

You and your customers expect a consistent experience at every one of your locations, no matter which one they are visiting. Use your video surveillance system to check in and make sure each location is in compliance with promotional displays and corporate standards. You can perform random remote checks or use scheduled thumbnail image reports that you can use as training tools or in performance reviews. Using real-time alerts and reports can improve operations and provide notifications when an event occurs that requires your attention. Stay focused on operations and get notified when a recorder is having hardware problems or a critical event occurs. Connect to sensors, your alarm panel or use camera based video analytics to create intelligent alerts and use image reports to maintain a history of customer readiness, site cleanliness or compliance with marketing programs. Get your alerts and reports via email or instantly pushed to your mobile device and accessing and storing your reports in the cloud makes it easy to pull them up when you need them where ever you are.

Reduce your risk

The security of your customers and employees is important and so is the security of your data. A cloud-managed video solution can help make sure you have video when you need it with system health monitoring that ensures your recorders are working properly and eliminates undetected system failures. Real-time health monitoring keeps you abreast of critical issues and potential problems with your video system including pending hard drive failure, changes in recording retention, network outages, and camera failure or tampering. Scheduled rollup reports on the health of your recorders can be delivered on a weekly or monthly basis so you can see everything is working properly at a glance.